Washington  - As US workers rushed to meet an annual deadline to file their tax returns, demonstrators fanned out across the country Wednesday for a series of "Tea Parties" to protest their heavy tax burdens and unnecessary government spending.

The protests drew their inspiration from the 1773 Boston Tea Party, where US colonialists protested unfair British taxes by throwing tea from three ships and into the Boston Harbour.

A re-enactment of the famous protest was planned in Boston and thousands of people carried tea bags to demonstrations in other cities, warning that the United States was on a slippery slope toward European-style socialism.

"Europe has stifled growth through higher taxes," said Cameron Aljilani, 30, from San Diego, California, who joined a few hundred people on a rainy day outside the White House. "We are now headed toward socialism."

President Barack Obama, in his own speech on Tax Day, acknowledged that April 15 "is not exactly everyones favorite date on the calendar" and said the government would have to make the same "tough choices" about spending that is made by US households.

He touted the administration's tax relief for middle class workers - rather than the wealthy - as one of the best means of pulling the economy out of recession, picking up on a heated debate from the 2008 presidential election.

Conservatives have derided Obama over the last few months for a series of ambitious efforts to revive the US economy that they argue are raising the federal deficit to dangerous levels.

Obama's pledge to raise taxes on wealthier workers after 2010 and plans to expand the government's role in health care have also brought cries of overreach and wealth redistribution, which carries very negative connotations in the United States.

"All we are saying, is give wealth a chance," sang one group of protestors by the White House. (dpa)